Prairie Dogs

By Jacques Kelly and Jacques Kelly,jacques.kelly@baltsun.com | June 12, 2009

It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo's new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved no match for the fast-footed rodents, the stars of a new exhibit that opens today. As officials were promoting the return of the zoo's 28 prairie dogs - their former digs had been out of sight in a closed section of the animal preserve for more than four years - some of the critters found ways to jump, climb and get over the walls of their prairie paradise, a centerpiece exhibit just inside the zoo's main entrance.

By Jacques Kelly and Jacques Kelly,jacques.kelly@baltsun.com | June 12, 2009

It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo's new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved no match for the fast-footed rodents, the stars of a new exhibit that opens today. As officials were promoting the return of the zoo's 28 prairie dogs - their former digs had been out of sight in a closed section of the animal preserve for more than four years - some of the critters found ways to jump, climb and get over the walls of their prairie paradise, a centerpiece exhibit just inside the zoo's main entrance.

Maryland Natural Resources police looking for a pair of illegal prairie dogs stumbled across a suspected Anne Arundel county armed robber in a house in Upper Marlboro.Officers had completed a monthlong investigation of complaints about the animals to Prince George's County Animal Management when they raided the house in the 3500 block of Halloway North about 6 p.m. They would not say who made the complaints.It is illegal to keep prairie dogs as pets in Maryland because there is no rabies vaccine for the animal.

By Victoria A. Brownworth and Victoria A. Brownworth,Special to The Baltimore Sun | October 12, 2008

Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams Pantheon Books / $26 / 416 pages Renaissance art, endangered prairie dogs and Rwandan genocide are the compelling triptych in Terry Tempest Williams' quest to piece together the shards of a fractured and fractious world and find meaning within the broken bits. Finding Beauty in a Broken World is a meditation on what in Yiddish is called tikkun olam - repairing the world. Williams repeatedly pairs violence and beauty in escalating examples while positing that beauty's healing grace can resonate in the darkest of places, be it a dying ecosystem in the Southwest desert or in a nation recovering from genocidal mass murder.

Next time you pass the prairie dog exhibit at the zoo, listen carefully to their chatter. They could be talking about you.A zoologist who has studied two colonies of the Gunnison's species of prairie dog in Arizona said he has discovered that the animals use a vocabulary of alarm calls so rich they can describe individual predators. If this is correct, other scientists say, the Gunnison's calls would be one of the most complex animal languages ever studied in the wild.Dr. Constantine N. "Con" Slobodchikoff of Northern Arizona University said Gunnison's prairie dogs give different alarm calls for humans, owls, hawks, domestic dogs, ferrets and coyotes.

MADISON, Wis. - At least 13 people in Wisconsin and Illinois have gotten sick after buying prairie dogs that might have been infected with a virus, officials said Thursday. The victims reported fever, coughs, rashes and swollen lymph nodes within two weeks of contact with the prairie dogs, said Dr. Mark Wegner, chief of the Wisconsin Communicable Disease Epidemiology Section. Twelve of the patients were in Wisconsin, and all of them have recovered or are getting better, Wegner said. The Illinois public health department knew of one illness in that state, but a department spokeswoman said she didn't know where the person was. Wegner said that he had never encountered a case of prairie dogs making people sick, but he pointed out that diseases can move from animals to people.

Nine new cases of suspected monkeypox were reported in the Midwest by state and federal health authorities yesterday, bringing the number of suspected victims to at least 37. Four of the cases have been confirmed as monkeypox by genetic tests, but the disease is so distinct that most of the suspected victims probably have the virus, said Dr. Stephen M. Ostroff of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State and federal officials are trying to track down other people who might have purchased diseased pet prairie dogs, which are believed to be the source of the outbreak.

It's springtime at the Baltimore Zoo, which means it's debutant season.The stork brought some new deliveries to Druid Hill Park, including prairie dogs and a baby dromedary.And for the first time, the zoo has acquired wallabies -- little furry marsupials native to Australia -- and two rare snow leopards.The new arrivals led Roger C. Birkel, the usually diplomatic zoo director, to a candid admission: "I'm so pleased to have snow leopards, because they are my favorite animal."Native to the Himalayas, the snow leopards -- a male named Kubla and his sister Nanda -- arrived from the Pittsburgh Zoo on April 9 and have been on display in the zoo's main valley for about a week.

WILD FACTS 1. Prairie dogs only weigh 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. 2. Prairie dogs are considered endangered due to loss of habitat. 3. Some prairie dog towns can reach the size of five city blocks! do you KNOW? How many prairie dog pups are in a litter? Answer: The size of prairie dog litters range from one to six pups. learn MORE! Visit the prairie dogs at the Baltimore Zoo. Read Prairie Dogs by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent.

Diggin' Dogs Prairie dogs are not dogs at all! They are a member of the squirrel family. Prairie dogs earned their name because of the high-pitched barking calls used in prairie dog communication. Prairie dogs live in "towns" that are a network of tunnels and burrows underground. Some of these tunnels reach depths of 16 feet! what's for DINNER? Green grasses, seeds and insects. WILD FACTS 1. Prairie dogs only weigh 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. 2. Prairie dogs are considered endangered due to loss of habitat.

Racing to control a monkeypox outbreak that has spread to four states, the federal government yesterday recommended smallpox vaccinations for anyone - including children and pregnant women - exposed to animals sickened by the monkeypox virus. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson also imposed an immediate ban on importation of pet rodents from Africa, as well as the sale and transport of native American prairie dogs and six African rodent species that might carry the disease.

Nine new cases of suspected monkeypox were reported in the Midwest by state and federal health authorities yesterday, bringing the number of suspected victims to at least 37. Four of the cases have been confirmed as monkeypox by genetic tests, but the disease is so distinct that most of the suspected victims probably have the virus, said Dr. Stephen M. Ostroff of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State and federal officials are trying to track down other people who might have purchased diseased pet prairie dogs, which are believed to be the source of the outbreak.

MADISON, Wis. - At least 13 people in Wisconsin and Illinois have gotten sick after buying prairie dogs that might have been infected with a virus, officials said Thursday. The victims reported fever, coughs, rashes and swollen lymph nodes within two weeks of contact with the prairie dogs, said Dr. Mark Wegner, chief of the Wisconsin Communicable Disease Epidemiology Section. Twelve of the patients were in Wisconsin, and all of them have recovered or are getting better, Wegner said. The Illinois public health department knew of one illness in that state, but a department spokeswoman said she didn't know where the person was. Wegner said that he had never encountered a case of prairie dogs making people sick, but he pointed out that diseases can move from animals to people.

Diggin' Dogs Prairie dogs are not dogs at all! They are a member of the squirrel family. Prairie dogs earned their name because of the high-pitched barking calls used in prairie dog communication. Prairie dogs live in "towns" that are a network of tunnels and burrows underground. Some of these tunnels reach depths of 16 feet! what's for DINNER? Green grasses, seeds and insects. WILD FACTS 1. Prairie dogs only weigh 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. 2. Prairie dogs are considered endangered due to loss of habitat.

WILD FACTS 1. Prairie dogs only weigh 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. 2. Prairie dogs are considered endangered due to loss of habitat. 3. Some prairie dog towns can reach the size of five city blocks! do you KNOW? How many prairie dog pups are in a litter? Answer: The size of prairie dog litters range from one to six pups. learn MORE! Visit the prairie dogs at the Baltimore Zoo. Read Prairie Dogs by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent.

Maryland Natural Resources police looking for a pair of illegal prairie dogs stumbled across a suspected Anne Arundel county armed robber in a house in Upper Marlboro.Officers had completed a monthlong investigation of complaints about the animals to Prince George's County Animal Management when they raided the house in the 3500 block of Halloway North about 6 p.m. They would not say who made the complaints.It is illegal to keep prairie dogs as pets in Maryland because there is no rabies vaccine for the animal.

There are babies at the Salisbury zoo. Several animals have given birth, among them the black-handed spider monkey, black-tailed prairie dogs, two-toed sloths, guanacos and Canada geese. The prairie dogs are favorites among visitors, who were concerned about their safety during a heavy rain and flooding of the zoo several months ago. "We probably lost a handful of them during the flood but the babies are a good sign the colony is still intact," says Jim Rapp, education director at the zoo. The guanaco is a wild ancestor of the llama family and native to South America.

It's springtime at the Baltimore Zoo, which means it's debutant season.The stork brought some new deliveries to Druid Hill Park, including prairie dogs and a baby dromedary.And for the first time, the zoo has acquired wallabies -- little furry marsupials native to Australia -- and two rare snow leopards.The new arrivals led Roger C. Birkel, the usually diplomatic zoo director, to a candid admission: "I'm so pleased to have snow leopards, because they are my favorite animal."Native to the Himalayas, the snow leopards -- a male named Kubla and his sister Nanda -- arrived from the Pittsburgh Zoo on April 9 and have been on display in the zoo's main valley for about a week.